In our home as you might have noticed by now, we love eating and tasting food from all over the world! Usually I am the one cooking this food, but tonight I have a special treat!

1st Sargeant Miguel Rodriguez from the Army JROTC program at South Plantation High School sent me a lovely gift!

He shared a package full of Pasteles , a Puerto Rican treat made by his wife. If you want to learn more about these wonderful treats click on the word Pasteles!

Never having handled these little treasures I embarked on the process of getting them ready to eat.

Its actually quite a simple process but its funny when the first time you do something always makes you worry about messing things up! All it took was to boil some water…..lol 🙂

Anyway, back on track, into the boiling water they went and wasn’t very sure how long I should keep them in there for, so I just got lucky that they were piping hot when I decided to remove them from the water.

Then I gently unwrapped the parcels and opened up the leaf and oh so simple but so very yummy, not sure how to describe them to someone who has never had them but I will try!

The soft moist masa, initially came across as bland but is actually very delicate in flavor, and then when you get some of the beef filling it suddenly all comes together! I was a bit hesitant on my first bite but after that it took all of 2 nano seconds to devour it!

Bueno provecho! Now its your turn to taste them and next time I will embark on actually making them myself with my usual Andy twist! Now off to pour myself some Coquito to keep with the Theme!

Someone came up to me today and said they would LOVE me to bake them Snickerdoodle Cookies!

Well please let me remind you that I come from Uruguay, lived in England for a while and been here in the USA for the past 17yrs and I had never, ever encountered such a thing!

First my mind took me down the path of “yeah must be like sugar cookies with broken pieces of snickers bars”, but when I asked that they describe them, all I got is, “they are so yummy, kind of soft in the middle”!

Well that didn’t help so I consulted my all time BFF, Mrs. Google! Found some recipes and they were all the same, a sort of sugar cookie dipped in cinnamon sugar and baked. What’s so special about that?

So I got home and my daughter and I embarked on the making of the “Oh so yummy cookie”!

Recipe I followed was very simple:

Mix all below ingredients:

1/2 cup of soft unsalted butter

1/2 cup of vegetable shortening

1 1/2 cups of sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cups of flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls (about 1 tablespoon), roll in cinnamon sugar (2 tablespoons of sugar + 2 teaspoons of cinnamon) and place on ungreased cookie sheet in a 400 deg F oven for 10-12 minutes and turn around half way through.

Family tested and liked them, but still not totally sure what the fascination is all about, maybe a childhood memory, grandmas cooking…..but for sure hope to put a smile on somebody’s face tomorrow!